5 ms·

I feel bad for the artists and engineers who work so hard only to get their track modified like this. It's like a gallery stamping a barcode onto the middle of

• capableweb 5y ago
  > I feel bad for the artists and engineers who work so hard only to get their track modified like this. It's like a gallery stamping a barcode onto the middle of a painting. Don't use Universal as a publisher then. At a certain point, its up to the artists to ensure they publish their music as they want, and any artifacts of making the wrong choice is ultimately them making the wrong choice.
  • boomlinde 5y ago
    You have to be much more wary: don't sign with a label that at some point in the future gets bought by a label that gets bought by Universal
    • daniel-cussen 5y ago
      Yeah it's wrong to pretend there's that much choice. And these shills always want the choice to be individual--hey if you don't the water label, don't use Universal. And in fact every label has something about it like this, like if you don't like getting the cover art discounted from your CD, don't use Warner Bros, if you don't like x, don't use y. But what they hate is when it's collective, like we got together with 1000 other artists and all of us are negotiating collectively to get the watermark removed. Because that actually has an impact.
    • tokai 5y ago
      Why would anyone with artistic integrity sign with any label nowadays? Everyone can distribute. If people like your stuff you can make a label yourself eventually.
      • mikro2nd 5y ago
        "Everyone can distribute" only if they're willing and competent to take on the jobs of marketing and distribution. Having heard much the same argument in relation to writers and self-publishing, it's a complete nonsense. Do you really want your favourite artist to spend 80% (arb. number made up for illustration) of their time doing stuff (marketing, that they are quite likely not much good at) or would you rather see them spend the time on the stuff they are good at -- the art? There's reasons these publishing/distribution industries exist, and I'd not wish their work on artists. The art is hard enough to do on it's own.
        • kortilla 5y ago
          The same thing can be said for the travel agency industry. The bar for publishing has significantly reduced so really it’s a question of the marketing piece you mentioned. Does an artist really need to sell to a label just to get marketing?
          • mikro2nd 5y ago
            What I'm trying to say (poorly) is this: every hour the artist has to spend on doing marketing (probably not well) is an hour they're NOT spending on their art. Me, I'd prefer to see them arting. (Not sure I understand your reference to the travel industry so well, but that's just me being dim.)
            • leviathant 5y ago
              Exactly! I'm probably commenting more deeply in this thread than is helpful, but my wife is a successful composer and DIY just. doesn't. scale. Even if you're not just coasting on some variation of financial inheritance, you can absolutely hustle - and if you get to a certain level of popularity, before you know it, you're spending most of your week answering emails and phone calls. For my wife, it was the pandemic, of all things, that pulled her out of this problem, because she got a PPP loan from the federal government, which gave her enough margin to finally hire a part-time personal assistant. Which in turn helped her get even more work. It's been real wild to watch. I still think that if you scramble, you should take on as much work as you (or your group) can handle DIY, so that you have leverage when the publishers and the record labels start paying attention. But if you want to be able to continue to make music after seeing some of that success, you'll start to understand why 'the industry' exists.
    • airstrike 5y ago
      Or sign with the label and add a change of control clause to the contract? Not saying it's not easier said than done, but there are contractual ways to get out of the situation you describe
• dfxm12 5y ago
  I feel bad for the artists and engineers who work so hard only to get their track modified like this. It's like a gallery stamping a barcode onto the middle of a painting. Not at all. Galleries don't necessarily own the work they're showing, likely can't legally modify the paintings & that painting is likely 1 of a kind vs a copy meant for a specific application. The musicians/engineers were paid for their work, and, barring some gross legal oversight on Universal's part, everyone involved understands that the audio can be edited when they do this.
  • 101008 5y ago
    I guess the previous comment was from an artistic point of view, not from a business/legal pov.
  • causality0 5y ago
    This is completely missing the point. If I worked tremendously hard on a piece of time-based art like music or film and someone regardless of legal right, changed the experience of every moment of it, I would be tremendously sad.
    • dfxm12 5y ago
      If you want to talk about your personal feelings, OK, I can't tell you how you may or may not feel. This was simply not expressed in your original post though, so no, I didn't completely miss the point.
      • causality0 5y ago
        This was simply not expressed in your original post I feel bad for the artists and engineers ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
        • dfxm12 5y ago
          These hypothetical anonymous people, from your first post, are not you, from your second post, and no amount of snarky emojis will change that (and this doesn't even touch on the rest of your first post).
• axg11 5y ago
  Why assume that all artists are against this? Universal aren't adding watermarks out of pure evil intent and desire to ruin the music industry. They're adding watermarks because they think there is an economic case. It's just as likely that artists see this as a net positive to preserve their piece of the pie.
  • pwdisswordfish9 5y ago
    Because any sufficiently advanced negligence is indistinguishable from malice.